It happens more often than you might think. Almost half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned.
“If you are a woman and have not yet passed through menopause, you can get pregnant,” said Siobhan Dolan, MD, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
You can only take steps to improve your chances of conceiving if you want to.
Why does it happen
As the saying goes, the only form of birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence. “Most of the time, birth control works, but ‘accidents’ can happen,” says Dolan.
Condoms, birth control pills, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other methods usually work 80% to more than 90% of the time. And permanent birth control, like female sterilization or male vasectomy, has a failure rate of less than 1%.
If you use contraception incorrectly, your chances of getting pregnant will increase. Sometimes it’s obvious it didn’t work, like when a condom breaks. In this case, you may want to take a second step, like the over-the-counter morning-after pill. It can prevent pregnancy for up to 5 days after unprotected intercourse. However, if you don’t notice a flaw like a tiny hole in a condom or forget your daily pill, you can get pregnant.
The main reason for an unplanned pregnancy isn’t because of ineffective birth control – it comes from a couple not using contraception. “Some women may not use contraception regularly, and some may not use contraception at all,” says Dr. Maureen Phipps, chief obstetrician and gynecologist at Rhode Island’s Women and Infants Hospital. “They may not like it, have no access to it, or even have a partner who doesn’t want them to use it.”
Often times, women or their partners aren’t sure whether they want a child or not, says Phipps. “You don’t plan [to have a baby], but they are also not actively trying to avoid pregnancy. And in the end they get pregnant. “
Some women don’t know they could get pregnant. If you’ve struggled with infertility in the past, don’t have regular periods, or are in perimenopause (the pre-menopausal period that can lead to light or irregular periods), it is still possible to get pregnant even though you do don’t do not expect it.
If you’re still getting your period – even if it’s not regular – and you don’t want to get pregnant, “keep using birth control,” says Dolan.
Once you go through menopause (that is, you have stopped menstruating and it has been a full year since you had your period), you can be confident that without contraception you will be able to have sex and not get pregnant. However, you still need to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases.
Comments are closed.